Gaming isn't officially an addiction, but ex-gamers say otherwise

Sunday

Jan 30, 2011 at 12:01 AMJan 30, 2011 at 11:16 AM

There is no formal diagnosis of video game addiction, said Dr. Thomas Finn, a Southington psychologist. In some ways, it's similar to the addiction to television parents were worried about decades ago.

Devon Matthews was spending so much time playing the video game Phantasy Star Universe he broke the counter, which means he went beyond the game's ability to track how much time he was spending playing it.

The counter reset, and he went beyond it again. Matthews said he spent more than 2,000 hours playing the game.

Phantasy Star Universe is what's called an MMORPG, which stands for massive multiplayer online role playing game. To say that such games can suck you in may be understating the situation.

"I was playing it like a job," said Matthews, who played the game for a year and a half.

"I was still functional in society, but when I wasn't fulfilling my responsibilities I was playing that game," he said. "You end up in these fantasy, long-range relationships with people - it becomes a second life, almost."

Video gaming continues to develop as a popular and lucrative entertainment medium, but as with most pleasures, too much of a good thing is not a good thing.

The 27-year-old Matthews, a 2002 graduate of Platt High School, said he has no doubt that he was addicted to playing Phantasy. It was, he said, the third game he'd become addicted to since he started playing Mario on the Nintendo Entertainment System as a little kid.

"I was, believe me, addicted," he said. "I have no delusions about that."

Matthews said he became so rich and powerful in the game that he was spending all his time in his character's store. That's when he quit. He sold off all his fantasy money for the real thing (about $300).

"I just came to the conclusion that I was addicted to it and that it was chewing my life up," he said.

Matthews is a certified nursing assistant who is getting ready to join the National Guard. He no longer allows himself to play a game of the MMORPG genre and no longer has a gaming console at home. He still plays, but only at the homes of friends.

"I'm trying not to have it in my life," he said. "Right now it's a social thing."

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Virtual friendship

There is no formal diagnosis of video game addiction, said Dr. Thomas Finn, a Southington psychologist. In some ways, it's similar to the addiction to television parents were worried about decades ago.

"We have to look at it as a symptom of something," Finn said. "We have to look at the whole person and see what's going on with him."

Video games provide an escape and fulfill a desire for excitement, and in that way they're similar to an addiction to gambling. There's also the element of interacting online with people throughout the world.

"It does create these fantasy friendships, so there's a distortion of what friendship really is," Finn said.

A Kaiser Family Foundation study earlier this year found the average time youngsters from 8 to 18 spend with entertainment media, including games, computers and television, is up dramatically to nearly eight hours per day.

The study, cited by the Governor's Prevention Partnership, also found that the more young people consume such media, the less happy they are. Studies also show some parents are concerned about new media and their effect on their ability to communicate with their children about substance abuse.

There are no formal programs at the Rushford Center, which provides mental health services, that focus specifically on video game addiction, said Melissa Tashjian, Rushford public relations manager. But it's addressed, because video games can become something people turn to when they're trying to kick another addiction, she said.

Rushford is planning an educational series for parents worried about how much time their children are spending playing video games, she said.

"The gatekeeper is the parent," Finn said. "The parents really have to make sure it's not abused."

That includes making sure youngsters recognize that playing games is a privilege, something to do "as long as it doesn't interfere with other parts of your life," he said.

Finn also advises that children never be allowed to have access to gaming in their bedrooms.

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"Absolute euphoria"

Like Matthews, Rich Scinto was able to recognize on his own the negative impact gaming was having on his life. A print journalism major at Quinnipiac University, Scinto wrote about his experience in the school's student-run online publication, the Quad News.

The 21-year-old Scinto, who is from Fairfield, said gaming became a problem before his freshman year in high school. The culprit at the time was a role-playing game called Morrowind.

"For me, at the time, it was an escape, because you could be someone else," he said.

"My life started to revolve around the game," he wrote in his article. "I even woke up early before school to sneak an hour of play in. Playing the game felt magical. As the game booted up and the title music came on, I was overcome by absolute euphoria."

Then one day, he recognized what was going on. "I was like, wait, I'm wasting my life," recalled Scinto, who also knew the game was having a negative effect on his performance in school.

He reduced his playing time, but by his junior year he was hooked on another role-playing game, Runescape.

Such games are seductive because of the interaction with other players and because the better players are highly regarded by others. They also spur a competitive spirit. Matthews said he was always worried when he wasn't playing his game that while he was away, someone was getting a leg up on him.

Scinto spent a year, some days playing as long as 12 hours, with Runescape. "I fished for virtual lobsters, hacked down fake trees and even cooked a few thousand cakes in the game," he wrote in the Quad News article.

One day, while he was cutting down a virtual elm tree, "I had an epiphany," he wrote.

"I realized that years down the road, it wouldn't matter how many trees I cut down in Runescape. I was wasting my life away."

Scinto, who says he's too busy at school and work now for games, experienced withdrawal symptoms, including irritability. "When I quit, it was pretty hard because your brain gets addicted," he said.

But, as he concluded at the end of his article: "Life is much more fulfilling when you aren't fishing for virtual lobsters."

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